In the course of conducting activities involving multiple parties, a need often arises for people to meet to share information, exchange data or documents, discuss topics of mutual interest, or collaborate in preparing various documents or other work product. It may not be desirable, or possible, for all of the participants in a meeting to be in the same physical location at the same time, in which case meeting objectives may be achieved using various communication equipment and networks as tools for facilitating remote collaboration in a multimedia collaboration session, such as a multiparty conference session. It can be useful for such a session to include a variety of media types that include the participants' voices, video images, shared documents, text messages, drawings, computer screen images, etc.
Several systems exist for configuring various devices and networks into collaboration sessions. For example, multimedia collaboration systems require many components and resources such as server equipment, networking equipment, and media processing and distribution. Session participants may be distributed in a wide variety of locations, e.g., in the same building, multiple buildings, across a city, across a country, or internationally. Thus, the communication links between participants vary greatly in quality, bandwidth, and usage cost.
Conventional multimedia collaboration architectures can be divided into two basic architectures: central-server and peer-connected. In a central-server architecture, all participant clients communicate with a single server that performs control, routing, and media processing functions. The server is located at a point in the network topology that is often not optimal for a given session's participants. In addition, a central server architecture provides all media services from a single point in the network, preventing separation of media services and further preventing location of specific media services at optimal points in the network. In a peer-connected architecture, particip4.it clients communicate directly with one another.
There are several roles for participants in a collaboration session. One role can be that of a moderator or chair of the collaboration session. A moderator can, for example, initiate and/or control the collaboration session. Another role can be that of a presenter or speaker. A participant who is in a presenter role can have the ability to make presentations, e.g., in audio and/or video format, during the collaboration session. Another role can be that of a viewer. A participant who is in a viewing role can have the ability to review and/or hear the presentations made by whichever participant is presenting at that time. A collaboration session can include one or more participants, each of which can participate in any number of these roles.
Privileges or permissions can be established for various participants and/or roles for a collaboration session. Particular privileges or permissions can be repeated or reused for the participants and/or roles in successive collaboration sessions. The privileges can be referred to as rules as well. The privileges determine the activities and the manner in which participants can participate in a collaboration session.
As discussed above, typically one of the participants in a collaboration session is a moderator. The moderator can have different privileges than the other participants in the collaboration session. For example, the moderator can initiate and/or control the collaboration session. In some systems, the moderator can grant permission to other participants in the session to become presenters. In other systems, the moderator can grant co-moderator status to a participant.
As discussed above, the participant who is presenting data in the collaboration session is the presenter. The current presenter's control over the presentations in a collaboration session can be referred to as “floor control.”
The handling of floor control in a collaboration session is usually based on some protocol. In other words, some communication between a participant and a moderator is required in order to achieve a change in floor control. In one example, protocol in the form of a “request to speak” inquiry is sent to the moderator or other coordinator of the collaboration session. Subsequently, a “request granted” or a “request denied” determination or response is sent from the moderator. In a conventional system, such protocol is often rigid and is unlike human behavior and interaction in meetings.
As a result, it is difficult in some conventional collaboration sessions to enable the same free flow of ideas and hand off of control among participants as that which normally occurs in a face-to-face or personal meeting. This is due in part to artificial control and coordination mechanisms imposed by the electronic collaboration that are not present in face-to-face meetings.
In conventional collaboration sessions, there is often only one participant who is designated as the presenter at a given time. The other participants in such collaboration session are viewers of the media presented by the presenter.
In some collaboration sessions, especially those sessions involving small workgroups, different participants may be scheduled to make presentations as part of the session. Thus, in some scenarios, every participant could be a presenter for some part of the session.
Conventional electronic meetings, such as collaboration sessions, often use pre-meeting preparation of presentations, e.g. slide decks, and generally use a single presenter at a given time during the meeting. Often the presentations must be “uploaded” to a central server prior to the start of the session. During a collaboration session with multiple presenters, handoff and coordination of floor control is often implemented using cumbersome mechanism that are not part of the normal flow of interactive meetings. Switching of floor control among presenters during a session typically requires a request, a negotiation and/or a designation by the moderator.
Some conventional systems do not enable participants to elect to view other media than that being presented by the current presenter. In other conventional systems, the role for each participant is initially assigned, but the sequence of presentations is usually not predetermined. Moreover, a large part of the productive output of such sessions is the ability to dynamically switch between presenters as the session occurs. Some control mechanisms typically require that certain roles are pre-assigned to participants granting them special authority. These roles are usually rigidly fixed prior to the start of the session and remain in place for the duration of the session.
In a face-to-face small meeting, content can be shared by multiple participants without any preparation. The control and flow of presentation sharing and speaking flow are regulated by social conventions and understandings. In conducting such a meeting electronically, any added flow control mechanism is both an added burden and hard-coded social construction that may or may not represent the desires of the participants. Etiquette, hierarchy, status, and respect are relevant components of such flow, yet these components require awareness of the other participants in the meeting.